


Circles

by indiw



Category: Superman/Batman (Comics)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-28
Updated: 2012-05-28
Packaged: 2017-11-06 03:46:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/414353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indiw/pseuds/indiw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written around the "Absolute Power" arc (#3 of the book collections of the comics); probably won't make sense without reading that.</p>
<p>Regarding the warnings: mostly m/m.  More dub-con rather than non-con, but, well. And the arc hopefully explains the 'major character death' part...</p>
    </blockquote>





	Circles

**Author's Note:**

> Written around the "Absolute Power" arc (#3 of the book collections of the comics); probably won't make sense without reading that.
> 
> Regarding the warnings: mostly m/m. More dub-con rather than non-con, but, well. And the arc hopefully explains the 'major character death' part...

====================  
Alternate: What is  
====================

 

Clark was never the one who started it. Because of what he *was*, the choice was always Bruce's.

 

They were to each other the single most important person in their respective lives, and they knew it. Were secure in it.

 

Words were inadequate; even Mother's all-encompassing touch meant less. All Clark could use to describe his feelings were the words 'brother' and 'family', and neither of them came even close to what he meant.

 

Maybe Kryptonian would have had the words, but he doubted it.

 

Sex... Sex was just an extension of it, one expression of a kind of love that no one else could possibly have.

 

Lois was icing, Lois was sweetness; cakes and presents, the trappings that came with completion. Lois was want; Lois was desire.

 

Bruce was *need*. He was everything to him; his other half, his rationality, his balance, his grounding; Bruce was the center that let him become more without losing what he already had.

 

Nothing could touch what lay between them - not all the Lois Lanes or Selina Kyles of their world - and not even their parents.

 

==========

 

Clark was crueler than he was; he gave his Lois the illusion that she was first in his life. She wasn't; though Clark did hold her more dear than Bruce held Selina.

 

*They* were first in each other's lives, sharing in ways no one of the cattle (however elevated) or their parents could comprehend.

 

Sometimes, they just needed.

 

This.

 

Hard mouths locked together, teeth clashing. Clark's hands digging into Bruce's flesh deep enough to bruise, not quite hard enough to break. Equal parts pain and pleasure, bodes fitting together perfectly, moving in sync, anticipating each other in ways that no worker-woman could ever manage.

 

Very nearly one mind; very nearly one body.

 

Very nearly perfect, just like their world.

 

==========

 

Clark shuddered, head thrown back, distantly aware that he was ruining yet another headboard with his clutching fingers as Bruce set his teeth meditatively on Clark's cock. This... this was what Lois just didn't get. He wasn't breakable, not by any stretch of the imagination, and sometimes, sometimes a light touch wasn't what he wanted. No mere human mouth (not even Bruce's) could make him bleed, could really cause any pain so that meant - Clark slammed his head back, hips thrusting up as Bruce's jaw clenched - that meant that everything felt really, really -

 

Bruce licked, bit and sucked Clark completely down, swallowing around him, teeth digging into the base as Clark exploded.

 

Sometimes, he just needed something *more*. Something that Lois, with her human-raised sensibilities, couldn't give him.

====================  
Alternate: What was  
====================

 

He never really understood why he was chosen, why he was trained to be the equal of someone with powers like Clark's. That question nagged him the whole of his life. It worked out, as it should have, with their parents coming from the future and knowing the paths to pick, and yet. He believed in their vision and their knowledge - it had been too precise to not believe, but ...

 

All those people with super powers. And he was picked to be Clark's balance. To be his other half.

 

Sometimes he wondered if he was there as a reminder to Clark that a normal human could be dangerous.

 

In his darker moments, he wondered if perhaps he was made to be the vulnerable spot in Clark's armor, the chink their parents would exploit if Clark went out of control.

 

==========

 

In some ways, Bruce was supremely confident - exactly in keeping with their upbringing. In others... The loss of his birth parents scarred him, no matter how much care and love their parents lavished on him. He dove into his studies with a ferocious intensity that drove Clark to learn more as well - just to keep up. Batman was not super-human like those they hunted - but he was more than equal to any of them, with his own brand of confidence, that, embarrassingly, was more deserved than Superman's.

 

After all, *his* weakness had been damningly obvious to those few rebels that were left.

 

The only weakness they'd ever found in Batman was when his rage overwhelmed his intellect - and that only happened when Superman was hurt.

 

====================  
Lost in space and time  
====================

 

A miscalculation, and it all unraveled; he had died, he seemed to remember, with Clark's fury ringing in his ears.

 

He should have concentrated more on the woman he'd been fighting, rather than trying to puzzle out his parents' behavior or arguing logic with the illogical.

 

He had died, and then, suddenly, he was alive with Clark crumpling before him and great spires of kryptonite glowing green around them.

 

They had slipped through worlds, the death of one or the other or both of them hurtling them on, until they ended in - what they were told - was the future of the world their parents' had made, a burned out planet with nothing left to rule but ashes.

 

He would not have chosen to owe Darkseid for their chance to prevent this future, but Clark chose for the both of them.

 

There was one choice he had left; one that Clark would not understand until too late.

 

====================  
Aftermath: The Present  
====================

 

He had thought he'd known Bruce. He had known him well enough to fight with him, to read him better than anyone not part of the Batfamily. And better than some of them did.

 

He still hadn't been quick enough to keep Batman from destroying himself.

 

That, more than all the deaths he had caused or inflicted, haunted him.

 

In the quiet aftermath, with only the two of them aware of just how much had happened, Clark had decided to deal with the lesser guilt, and had spoken to Diana, to clear the air for his peace of mind.

 

Now, he recalled how that Diana had begged him to 'remember' even as he had smashed her to the ground and stripped her of her defenses; the way her shoulders had sagged minutely as he held her lasso and spoke the absolute truth that spelled her death in that world.

 

And yet.

 

He remembered watching as without any semblance of regret, without any hesitation, she had slammed her sword home in Bruce.

 

Bruce hadn't seemed to bear her any more ill will or distrust than before this jaunt of theirs through different worlds of possibilities.

 

Or perhaps it was that his normal manner covered any additional distrust.

 

Bruce had said that Clark would never look at Diana in the same way again; as always, Bruce was right. Clark wouldn't, couldn't.

 

He saw her, and he could remember the feel of her life fleeing her body at his hands with all its attendant horror; he could also see her murdering Bruce and all the rage that brewed.

 

No.

 

He wouldn't ever see Diana as he had before this.

 

==========

 

He was no Superman, he was human, enhanced only by will and a warped childhood. He knew exactly what he was, and despite all that he had done, he had refused to believe that the mere existence of a Batman was enough to change the world.

 

He knew better, now.

 

Despite the pain, he would hold tight to the memories of growing up a true spoiled playboy, of his parents alive and raising him.

 

It helped, Clark's alien hand on his shoulder, knowing someone understood, as much as anyone could.

 

====================  
Aftermath: The Future.  
====================

 

Clark was living in his perfect little vacation house, with his perfect little family in the slice of space and time that was what it ought to be -

 

Including Bruce, in the shadows, his silvered hair catching the reflected light of the moon, balanced easily in a tree.

 

Clark hesitated for a moment, before he called back over his shoulder. "Lois? I'll be in soon -"

 

Faintly he heard her agreement, as the door shut behind him. "Bruce?"

 

With liquid, purely human grace, Bruce dropped soundlessly down. "Clark."

 

Memories suddenly slotted into place, reminders of what had happened and what hadn't happened, and the constant - his touchstone through all of it, and the only other person who could really understand. Who was looking at him in amusement.

 

"I'd always wondered if your memories were sharper than mine."

 

No matter how many times he heard it, the gravely-rough voice of purest Batman-threat coming out of Bruce's playboy face, even aged, had him erect and weeping in seconds. Because Bruce never slipped, and that voice without the cowl meant that he was willing to play.

 

Flush rising without his willing it, Clark licked his lips, surprised, and happy for it. "Here?"

 

Bruce laughed. "You just integrated - I extrapolated from the scan I had, of course - you sure you're up to anything more... demanding? Lois is waiting for you..."

 

With a growl of his own and burst of speed, he had Bruce pinned against a tree a half-mile distant; clothing shredded between them, and Bruce's laughter still ringing in his ears. "You *knew*."

 

Still chuckling, Bruce tangled his fingers in Clark's hair, and yanked back; Clark's body automatically following, and pulling free. "That you couldn't be trusted with Lois, with memories of solitude and ashes? You didn't think you were being subtle, did you?"

 

A twist, and he knew that Bruce didn't have super-speed, but he managed to strip Clark very efficiently, leaving him naked and dripping and clutching the tree he'd thought he'd had Bruce pinned up against. Someday, he'd learn.

 

Though not this day, as Bruce dropped to his knees behind him, and - shuddering, fingers splintering wood as the tree swayed unsteadily before him, Clark did his best not to clench, not to damage that hot, wet - "Bruce!" His voice cracked embarrassingly, but he should be forgiven when -

 

Teeth. Teeth now, and that wicked tongue, and he could *feel* Bruce smiling behind him, and he shook, seconds from doing something that would make *sure* he'd never have the pleasure of that voice again - and suddenly it was gone; a hand wrapped punishingly around him, blunt nails digging into the head of his cock, pinching and pulling, and then a nudge; and something slick and hard shoved *in* him -

 

Clark bit his lips on a scream, head colliding with the tree in front of him with the crack of breaking wood.

 

Slowly raising his head from the wreckage of what once had been a tree, Clark brushed the splinters off, and slumped to the ground. "Bruce?"

 

Meditatively, Bruce licked his fingers clean. "Clark. You told me once that I would regret not killing you." Meeting Clark's eyes directly, Bruce smiled, and Clark could see the shadow of who they had been in his eyes.

 

Yes. Bruce remembered.

 

Crouching down, Bruce cradled Clark's cheek. His face didn't soften, not this uncowled-Batman, but his eyes grew warm; fire rather than ice. "I don't. I'd choose the same, knowing what I do."

 

Puzzled, Clark frowned. "Bruce?"

 

Bending down for a kiss that was as much teeth as it was tongue, Bruce smiled again. "You don't have the memories of what I did when I made the choice to kill you."

 

====================  
Epilogue: Darkseid's Price  
====================

 

Superman stopped, fury rising up in him. "What!" The word spat out of him, a mix of rage and jealousy and seething emotions that most people would have sworn he didn't possess.

 

Darkseid smiled, his hands clasped behind his back. "I enjoy your puny efforts to defy me; you should be grateful that this is all that I ask."

 

Batman started to step around him, and Superman shot in front of him in a blur of red and blue. "No! I was the one who agreed -"

 

Darkseid's smile took on a cruel edge. "So you did. You *are* paying the price I want."

 

Superman's eyes blazed, a hairsbreath from igniting - useless though he knew it would be.

 

Batman's hand closed deliberately - all too briefly - on his arm, gloved fingers soothing the tensed muscles.

 

Impotently, Superman stepped aside, his voice a furious hiss in the face of his helplessness. "If you hurt him -"

 

Darkseid let his arms drop and he gestured Batman forward. "Since you wish to assure yourself - you can watch."

 

Batman checked, ever so slightly, before continuing his calm stride to Darkseid. Superman wanted to turn away, wanted to not to need to watch, wanted to not remember - but if he did *that*, Bruce alone would bear these memories; he couldn't do that to him. Couldn't abandon him like that.

 

So he breathed deeply of air he didn't need; forced calmness that he hadn't needed - well, ever. Bruce was the calm one, Batman was the one who spoke in measured words and pitiless logic, emotions locked down behind ice. But it would be bad enough to have to do what Batman had to do; the impassioned arguments he'd already made had only made things worse.

 

He reached for the ice-calmness of his Fortress of Solitude, and he held it close. Held it as Darkseid made Batman kneel before him (only Batman could make that look more like a threat than a submission), held it as Darkseid's hand closed on Batman's fragile human skull with fingers strong enough to shatter stone; let it surround him as Batman's gauntleted hands slid under Darkseid's tunic, as fragile human fingers played expertly on nearly invulnerable alien flesh.

 

Darkseid must have a way to reproduce - he had a *son* after all - but Superman had never wanted to know, and a small, shamed part of him was thankful that it was *Bruce* and not him - and how could he face Bruce again, knowing that a part of him, no matter how small, was that petty?

 

Though Bruce might find it amusing. Something more to hold over him, besides the kryptonite ring.

 

He could see a small slice of Batman's face, and it was his lockpick-look - the one he wore when he was concentrating on encouraging tumblers to fall just right - and Superman knew, even before Darkseid's back straightened more, before Darkseid's eyes widened and his hand nearly - nearly closed sharply and irrevocably down.

 

Batman's look, of course, merely intensified and his head dipped closer, the firm ridge of his nose-guard rubbing the bulge in front of him, his arms working their way up further under Darkseid's clothing.

 

Darkseid inhaled deeply, his hands snapping behind him, fingers twining tight, his eyes suddenly lost to the world around him.

 

Superman slowly relaxed, watching Batman at work. And it was work; it was nothing like what they had between them - or was it? Watching Darkseid shudder, watching Darkseid's head tilt back just the merest inch and his mouth open involuntarily, Superman began, horribly, to see the similarities.

 

Did he look like that?

 

He was pretty sure the answer was *yes*.

 

Watching everything, similarities rising to a painful degree, he no longer needed to think of the Fortress of Solitude to keep the ice on his face. Superman studied the way Batman matter-of-factly stood, scrubbing his gauntlets clean; watched as Bruce tilted his head up in utter calm, the way only Batman had in the face of overwhelming odds -

 

Batman's low, gravely voice broke the trance Clark was in. "Is the price paid?"

 

Even though he seemed only to be looking at Batman, Superman knew - knew with a shiver of disgust at himself - that Darkseid was taking in everything he had thought in a glance and was pleased - and Darkseid inclined his head. "Yes."

 

With a *BOOOM* of displaced air, he was gone again.

 

Superman narrowed his eyes. Bruce hadn't enjoyed that. There were signs he could remember seeing, hearing, tasting in the air when the two of them were together - when Bruce was driving him out of his mind - that weren't here now. All there was, was a tang of ash and brimstone along with the faint, faint taste of human-sweat.

 

He shouldn't do this. He especially shouldn't do this when he wanted to do it for all the wrong reasons; he wanted to destroy those gauntlets, he wanted to tear off Bruce's cowl, he wanted to use sex to cover up any memory of Darkseid.

 

Bruce finally looked at him, and Superman distantly felt his face tighten in anger - a thin skin of fury over roiling emotions he didn't want to confront now. Instead, he focused on what he didn't like. He didn't like the calculating look in Batman's eyes; he didn't like the way they narrowed, the way the body checked and the fingers twitched, as though halting a movement to a particular compartment on his belt.

 

This one time, he would not give Bruce a choice.

 

Even though this time was the time above all he *should* give him one - but he had lost any semblance of human morals with Bruce; Bruce had encouraged it (using it as a safety valve so the powerful alien wouldn't destroy everything?) and Clark shook those thoughts away.

 

They didn't matter right now, not when he had Bruce's hands trapped above his head in an unbreakable grip, not when he had the pleasure of Batman's eyes widening in surprise as he was pinned; the soft, nearly inaudible gasp of shock and arousal as Clark dragged his free hand down, effortlessly tearing through Bruce's armored costume.

 

Nothing else mattered when he could fit his mouth to Bruce's and be immediately welcomed, tongue and teeth and heat enveloping him.

 

Peeling strips of uniform off of the both of them, Clark slid their hips together, one leg locking around Bruce's calves, keeping him from escaping, lifting just high enough off the ground that Batman had no purchase, had no leverage except where their bodies touched.

 

Hard against him, Bruce relaxed into his hold, using the points of contact to arch into Clark's body. To rub himself rhythmically against Clark, hardening the both of them -

 

Taking control, as only Batman could, trapped and seemingly powerless, and still, effortlessly, he took control -

 

Not this time.

 

Clark growled, "You are *mine*," his hand snaking down to stroke Bruce to the shuddering edge of climax, his teeth nipping and sucking, marking Bruce's chin and neck, just barely keeping enough of himself in check to not break Bruce's skin.

Batman smiled, his head tilted back in seeming surrender, his voice anything but cowed. "Just as *you* are mine."

 

With those words, Clark bit down, tasting blood, feeling Bruce explode in his hand, and exploding himself in turn.

 

Sinking slowly to the ground, Clark pulled Bruce to rest over him; kept him trapped but in more of an equal hold; Bruce's hands were at his throat, Bruce's knees at his groin. He couldn't manage an apology, not to Bruce, not when he wasn't truly sorry.

 

But the contented way Bruce allowed him to snuggle - well.

 

Perhaps no apologies were necessary.


End file.
